Wallflowers one of the best and quirkiest of queer web series from 2013/4 has finally made it to DVD, and if you’ve never caught this wee gem when it was first broadcast, you’ll soon be hooked. It is a very funny saga of a group of single New Yorkers in their 30’s who simply cannot get dates.
Most of them became friends when they met each other at the weekly support meeting by Janice (Christianne Tisdale ) who claims she is a ‘master of love’ but had little evidence to back up this up. They all seem comfortable with opening up and talking about being eternally single at the meetings, but once outside their bravado deserts them and they all find it impossible to approach potential dates.
The group is a mixture of gay, straight and bisexual, and one of the most refreshing things about Wallflowers is that the storylines do not focus on the sexuality of their characters but simply their own particular ineptitude at getting a date.
There is Bryce a former child star who now runs a successful Casting Agency. He is actually played by three different actors throughout the course of the series, which they have great joy in pointing out. Bryce is gay but distrustful of people in general, even when he is hit on by Alex a real hottie (John Holbach from Eastsiders).
Daisy (Sarah Saltzberg) Bryce’s best friend and business partner obsesses over a film director who she can only talk to via Facetime and has no idea if he has the slightest romantic feelings for her. Martin (Gibson Frazier ) is a very earnest straight man who is so eager to find a partner he smothers them and can never get beyond a first date.
Victoria (Angela Lin) is an eternally angry woman who takes her annoyance out on all happy couples but is blessed with a wickedly funny line of repartee that has you very firmly in her corner. She was raised in a culture where women were seen as subservient and thinks the only she can get over this is by dating gay men. Rhonda (Susan Louise O’Connor ) is the only one who actually takes Janice’s advise literally and so ends up mistakenly thinking that any man she does jump in bed with will love her forever, which she is constantly learning is so not going to happen.
With a whole cast of quirky supporting characters too this very unpredictable and hilariously funny series has these different storylines that carefully avoids any hint of the usual cliched take that all single people must be sad saps. In Wallflowers we not only see parts of ourself, but also maybe people we would like to have been if we too had been single in Manhattan.
